After two days of driving, experiencing the James Bay Road, and eventually falling asleep under the blanket of Northern Lights, I awoke Tuesday morning excited and raring to go. I was to meet Roger, my contact, at his business in Chisasibi, a First Nations community about 100 km west of Radision, QC.

Balaclava was started with the sawmill in 1855 on Constant Creek. By the 1860's, a blacksmith and hotel had joined the permanent residents. The sawdust burner was constructed in 1903 to avoid polluting the river.

Once a very important shipping port in the Great Lakes, and the westernmost point of the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway, Depot Harbour is now little more than some concrete ruins hidden among the trees.

Settlement here began as early as 1841, but it wasn’t until 1854 that the town, then known as Centerville, would be formally laid out. In 1865, the Post Office would open, changing the name to Centralia as it would be officially incorporated the following year.

Coal mining was the principal employer in the region until the 1960’s when many of the companies would begin going out of business.

Frick’s Lock is an abandoned village that appears to date back as far as the 1700’s. Several houses along a single, closed road would be emptied in 1986 when the nuclear power plant across the river went online.

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